Chapter 9 Upgraded Partnership
“ W anna ride back to the ranch in my truck, babe?” As Tucker drove around the lake that the town was named after, he pulled off his wig and spat his veneers into his hand. There was no point in remaining in disguise now that Chip was in on the gig.
“Babe?” Mallory, who’d been using the mirror on the sun visor to remove her green contacts, burst out laughing.
He grinned. “Just practicing. I’m still new to this relationship stuff.”
“Practice all you want.” Her laugh was the most beautiful sound in the world to him. “As for hitching a ride with you, I drove my Jeep to a friend’s house, remember?” She put air quotes around the word friend .
“I see. Where’d you really stash it?” He was dying to know.
She gave him an incredulous look. “Where do you think?”
“Ah!” He shook his head in bemusement as they neared the tractor supply store that handled Western Overland Trucking rentals. He’d left his Chevy Colorado parked there. It was apparently where she’d parked, as well.
She looked gleeful. “Remember that stack of raised garden bed containers that toppled over?”
He rolled his eyes, unable to forget the loud crash of metal hitting the pavement. “That was you?” Talk about a distraction! It had worked, too.
She snickered. “Didn’t want you to notice me hightailing it around the other side of the cattle trailer.”
“Your stowaway skills aren’t too shabby.” It amused him to learn she’d been inside the cattle trailer when he’d driven to her ranch to load up her steers.
“Pretty clever, huh?” She sounded enormously proud of herself.
“Yep.” Her stunt was impressive. He braked as they approached a stop sign.
“Coming from you, that’s a pretty big compliment.” She glanced his way, giving him the full blast of her sparkling eyes, which were back to their normal coffee-brew color.
“There you are,” he crowed as he hung a right.
She pretended to pout. “Are you saying my eyes didn’t look good in green, babe ?”
Man, but he adored her brand of snark! And yes.
He preferred her eyes the color God made them, but he wasn’t dumb enough to say it out loud.
He gave her a safer answer. “I like you just the way you are, Mallory Evans.” He winked at her again.
“Soon to be Mallory Pratt, assuming you’re taking my name? ”
“I am.” Her chin came up. “And you’re wearing a wedding ring, mister. It’s not up for negotiation. I need all the hopeful ladies in town knowing you’re off the market.”
He snorted. “There aren’t that many with hopes in my direction. Trust me.” He wasn’t a hundred percent sure there were any at all. None that he’d noticed, at any rate.
She wrinkled her nose at him. “Just because you’re oblivious to the single crowd doesn’t mean they’re not out there.”
“True.” He really hadn’t given it much thought. “Well, thanks to you, I’m no longer one of them.” Now that she’d brought up the topic of wedding rings, he was ready to move on to that.
“You’re welcome.” She folded her arms. “Gotta perfect my jealous-wife routine before we take this thing public.”
“Pretty sure I have more reason to worry than you do.” He kissed her with his eyes as he pulled into the parking lot of the tractor supply store.
The woman he was about to marry was smoking hot without even trying.
She didn’t require makeup, name-brand labels, or anything else to pull it off. She just was.
“So, ah…” He had a Santa-sized list of questions to work through before their wedding. “About our rings…do you prefer to ring shop before or after we get married?”
“Before.”
“Same.” Hopefully, there’d be enough time to have her ring properly sized, because he very much liked the idea of sliding a wedding band on her finger during the ceremony. “What about our vows? Should we make up our own or let the minister tell us what to say?”
“Option two,” she said quickly. “My writing skills are subpar. So are my cooking skills.” She peeked worriedly at him from beneath her eyelashes. “This is the part where you reassure me that my honesty is one of my most endearing qualities.”
“It is, but only because I can cook,” he teased as he pulled up to the rental drop-off area next to the store. He genuinely enjoyed puttering around the kitchen. It came with the territory of bachelorhood, a skill he’d perfected after growing sick and tired of eating out.
She looked relieved. “Then we won’t starve.”
“That’s it. I’m outta here.” The moment the truck stopped, Chip pushed open the back door and leaped to the ground. “You two can continue slobbering all over each other after I’m?—”
“Not so fast, slick.” Tucker opened his door and climbed out after him to keep him from darting off. “The three of us need to corroborate our stories before heading back to the ranch.”
Before he could move around the truck to assist Mallory down, she did the deed herself and joined them.
He reached for her hand. “Chip can ride back with me, so we can have a man-to-man about the wedding stuff and other things.”
Mallory held up a finger to Chip and used her and Tucker’s joined hands to pull him aside. “Are we really doing this?” she hissed.
His eyebrows rose. “Define this .”
She waved a hand awkwardly between them. “Getting married. Sometimes it’s hard to tell when you’re joking and when you’re not.”
His eyebrows rose higher. “You were there for the proposal. My first and only marriage proposal.”
Color flooded her cheeks. “We’ve been playing roles the entire trip. How was I supposed to know you were being serious this time?”
“I don’t know. You just were.” He wasn’t sure what she was hoping to hear. “You were the one who insisted it should be a real marriage. ”
She looked confused. “So, you don’t really want to marry me?”
“I do.” That was the crazy part. “I meant every word I said to you in the truck. Every promise. Every kiss.”
She flushed. “Let’s hit the rewind button. You offered me a marriage of convenience to…” She gestured at him to finish the sentence.
“To give me an excuse to become a more permanent fixture at your ranch,” he supplied.
She caught her lower lip between her teeth. “After which I arm-twisted you into a real marriage, thinking I was pouring it on thick for Chip’s sake. Selling him on yet another role.”
He pointed at his face, eager to impress on her just how serious he was about how things had shaken out between them. “This is my not-complaining look, darling.”
“We’re really getting married then?” Her voice rose to a high pitch of uncertainty.
“Yes, please.” At the risk of scaring Chip off for good, Tucker figured it was time to make one thing abundantly clear. He claimed her lips in another very thorough kiss.
She looked dazed when he raised his head. “We just started dating.”
“I know.” He brushed his thumb across her lower lip. “And now we’re getting married.”
“This is crazy.” Her hands flew to cover her mouth. “You realize this is completely crazy?” Her words came out muffled from behind her fingers.
Yeah, he did. “I’m starting to like crazy.”
She glanced away from him. “We probably need to talk this out a little more first.”
He was fine with that, as long as they ended up married. “Chip and I will be following you back to the ranch. We can talk after that.”
“Okay.” She returned her gaze to him, searching his features.
He wanted so badly to kiss her again, but he could tell she needed more time to process everything that had transpired between them. Instead, he reached over to curl his pinky finger around hers. “Drive safely.”
She gave his pinky finger a light tug before letting it go. “You, too.” She backed toward her Jeep, which ended up being parked a few vehicles down from his truck. Go figure. She was such a hoot.
After watching her drive off in her Jeep, he angled his head at Chip to follow him to the rental counter.
He nodded and fell into step beside him. “If you’re gonna tear into me about something, you might as well get it over with.”
“Old Glory.” Tucker kept his voice down. “I need you to find out where the bull is that Mallory’s dad gave her. Pronto, as in yesterday.” He jabbed a finger at the kid for emphasis. “I don’t care how you do it, but it’s gonna be my wedding gift to her, you hear?”
Chip nodded meekly. “Yes, sir.”
“Tucker,” Tucker corrected. “Already told you I’m not old enough to be your dad.” He was warming to the idea of being his older brother, though. Or his joint sponsor, if it came to that.
Chip nervously adjusted his Stetson. “If I live through my next encounter with my parents, I’ll help you track down Mallory’s big, cantankerous bull.”
“You’ll live,” Tucker assured. “I’ll see to it, since I’m gonna crash at Evans Ranch.
” He was already mentally rearranging the belongings inside Mallory’s farmhouse.
First, the desk where Martina Silva did her bookkeeping would be moved from the living room.
Not just to another part of the house, but out of the house.
She could continue her slimy criminal activities from a shady corner of the barn, for all he cared.
Chip’s expression brightened. “Wanna stay in the barn loft with me?”
Tucker frowned at the question. “You don’t live with your parents?”
Chip shook his head sheepishly. “Nah, I moved out. Mallory doesn’t know, and I’d like to keep it that way.”
Tucker sensed there was more to the story. “How long have you been roughing it?”
Chip didn’t quite meet his gaze. “Since we arrived in town. It’s a long story. I’ve gotta space heater out there and everything. It’s not too bad.”
If you say so. Tucker sped through the paperwork, signatures, and final payment for the rental truck and trailer.
Only when he and Chip were walking toward his Chevy Colorado did he speak again.
“We’ve got ten to fifteen minutes before we reach the ranch.
Plenty of time for me to listen if you need to talk. ”
Chip claimed the seat Mallory had vacated and buckled himself in. “I’ve told you everything I can think of.”
“Except why you moved out,” Tucker reminded.